pyChi - Simulating supercontinua from mixed and cascaded nonlinearities

Optical frequency conversion by quadratic and cubic nonlinearities permits the synthesis of broadband multi-octave spanning spectra (supercontinua). We have developed an efficient approach for simulating simultaneous quadratic and cubic nonlinear effects, as well as cascading effects. An open source implementation is freely available (pyChi).

pychi_2.gif

Example of a simulation result obatined in pyChi.

One platform in which quadratic and cubis nonlinearities can be accessed simultaneously are photonic chip-integrated waveguides. For their design, numeric simualtion tools are critical. To address this need, we have developped an efficient numeric approach that allows simulating broadband spectra based on mixed quadratic and cubic nonlinearity. To prevent artifacts through cascading effects, an anti-alising scheme is employed. The open-source Python implementation pyChi is freely available.

Reference: 
Simulating supercontinua from mixed and cascaded nonlinearities; Thibault Voumard, Markus Ludwig, Thibault Wildi, Furkan Ayhan, Victor Brasch, Luis Guilermo Villanueva, Tobias Herr; APL Photonics -- Editor's Pick, 8, 036114 (2023)